Tricky Transitions

Some of my readers may know that I started this blog a couple years ago when I was trying to figure out what to declare as my college major. Because writing helps me to sort out my thoughts, I was hoping that blogging would help me better understand my areas of interest and therefore better understand myself. While I eventually did declare a major that I ended up graduating with, I find myself in a familiar place of not knowing what I want to do with my life.

The time right after graduation was challenging. I was starting a new job, getting ready to move, and trying to figure out what friends were in the area and available to spend time with. Meanwhile, the need for a consistent budget haunted me day and night, as I was an emerging adult who was quickly becoming fully responsible for supporting herself. I would feel lonely, but then feel guilty because my circumstances were pretty decent, and I wasn’t suffering from a huge crisis. I say these things in past tense, but really I am still working through each element as I learn how to act grown up like so many before me.

Other young people I have talked to empathize with me as they remember how difficult their time of transition out of school/into independent adulthood was. It is comforting and validating to know that I am not alone in my struggles, but I wish there was more concrete advice to be given for those who find themselves in similar situations. As frustrating as it can be, however, there is no set formula for how to survive outside of school. Yes, community, budgeting, and hobbies are all worthy goals to pursue, but what do you do when you are pursuing those things and you still feel lonely and disinterested? The most common thing that I seem to hear is to just keep on keepin’ on. I guess that’s really all I can do, regardless of how fruitless the journey seems at the moment. I will figure it out eventually, but it is frustrating how the seemingly pettiest of challenges are often the trickiest to maneuver.

One Degree to Rule Them All

Summer 2013

I am neither a bachelor nor a scientist, but eventually I will be considered both, provided that I choose a path of study.

It’s tough for me to choose.

I enjoy a variety of activities. I don’t think I could stay sane if every day were exactly the same as the one before. Sometimes, however, it’s easy to get stuck in the mindset that I’m supposed to go to college to to get one degree and then get one job for the rest of my life. Yuck! (I know that’s not true, of course)

Don’t get me wrong. I love college. What I don’t love is that you can only choose one or two majors at a time, unless of course you intend to stay there for more than four years. If you plan to be in school for more than four years that’s awesome. Maybe I’ll end up doing that. I just wish sometimes that I could major in five different things at once. I would love to be half film major, half music major, half theater major, half physics/astronomy major, half wine-making major, and while I’m at it, half math major (although I clearly need to work on my math skills). I find that I might enjoy taking certain music classes, for example, but I don’t want to take all the classes required for a music major because I’m not interested in all those classes.

I realize that the key is to never stop learning, even after graduation. I don’t think I’ll be getting half a dozen degrees, but I do plan to take classes even after I’m “done” college.

And I suppose it is nice to be able to walk into an interview and say “Having this specific degree shows that I’ve had certain training in this area.” Although at this point I don’t even know where I would go to be interviewed.

That’s the tough part. Indecisiveness. I’m fine with not knowing what the future holds, but it’s frustrating to not be able to decide what to major in, even if I don’t work in that field for the rest of my life.

The Intricacy of Intimacy

“Had a great talk with a friend of mine last night. We conversed until well past midnight about life, relationships, and our personalities. We got to talking about Myers-Briggs personality types, and how my friend’s personality is complimentary to mine, mine being INFJ, and hers being ENFP. With our two middle letters being the same and the outside letters being different, our personalities work well together. We joked about how it was a shame one of us wasn’t a guy so we could marry each other.

Later that night something clicked while I was lying in bed: I almost began feeling less lonely. Yes, I still longed for intimacy with a guy as well as sarcastic banter, but I realized that I found it really refreshing to be with someone whose personality complemented mine and who was aware of her mental health. I realized that while my loneliness didn’t go away, she is someone I would feel comfortable being lonely with. Not in a weird, romantic way, but such that we’ve been able to develop a friendship over the years that has allowed us to share personal things with each other. And that realization makes me happy.”

That was a journal entry of mine from back in April of this year. I was visiting a friend whom I hadn’t seen for awhile, and I loved how we could pick back up from where we left off despite not having talked in who knows how long. We have been friends for several years, and if the saying is true that says if you’re friends with someone for longer than seven years you’re friends for life, I guess that means that she and I are pretty much stuck with each other, no matter how many miles are between us.

I share this to express my reflections on the human desire to bond, and how that desire has affected me. Often I would describe myself as being lonely, no matter how often I spend time with people. I have realized that loneliness cannot be cured by another person, and while socialization does help to remedy it, becoming dependent on other people for our own happiness is unhealthy. This is why I say that I don’t want someone to take away my loneliness, but rather I want someone to be lonely with.

A few months ago when I visited my friend, I realized that she was someone I enjoyed feeling lonely with. We were able to share with each other things we struggled with, things we dreamed about, things we thought were funny. While we couldn’t solve each other’s problems, we could offer our friendship to each other, and that has been an incredible gift.

Our personalities are not the same, but that allows us to learn from each other. It is through my friendship with her that I realized that intimacy comes in many different forms. When I hear the word intimacy I automatically think of physical closeness, but it is so much more than that. When conversing with this friend, I have felt somewhat of an intellectual intimacy, if you will, because we would explore philosophical topics and life issues in a way that people don’t normally do in everyday interactions. Other times I have felt an emotional intimacy because I would share with her a personal battle that I was facing.

My realization of the complexity of intimacy is important because it has helped me to understand that loneliness is often very complicated, but that does not necessarily make it a bad thing. Sometimes I crave emotional or intellectual intimacy in the form of something mentally stimulating, while at other times I just flat out want to cuddle with someone. Knowing this helps me to better understand how to take care of myself, and hopefully will help me be able to better care for others.

Stir-fry and Sunshine

Summer 2013

The great thing about working in a farm market is that I get to meet a lot of interesting people. We get all sorts of customers – old, young, travelers, locals, people whose accents I struggle to understand.

The other day there came in a woman with her son, who was probably about 12 or 13 years old. But let me say, he was one of the most respectful and sociable 12 or 13 year old boys I’ve met. He took the lead in picking out peppers and squash, and he told me about the stir-fry he was planning to make for dinner that night before he going to a scouts meeting.

I almost thought he was home-schooled because of the ease with which he interacted with me as well as the other adults in the market (I mean that as a compliment; sometimes home-schoolers are known for interacting well with adults). But then I realized he wore a shirt bearing the name of the local school.

I meet a lot of different customers, but that young boy made my day. Lord bless him and the beautiful mother raising him.

Frustrations with a Broken Body

The human body is an amazing thing. If we learn to listen to our bodies, we often know what they need. If we are tired, we know to rest. If we are hungry, we know to eat. If we smell, we know to clean ourselves. The list could go on and on.

If only life were as simple as our bodies telling us what we need, and us responding in healthy ways. But what happens when your body doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to?

I am young, and for the most part, healthy, so I thankfully have not experienced the embodiment of a terminal illness, neither do I claim to understand what it feels like to experience it. I do, however, have a genetic condition that I am reminded of every time I look in the mirror, and sometimes even oftener than that.

I am talking about cystic acne. It is not just the typical acne that one has as a teenager, that consists typically of black heads and white heads. That indeed can be very annoying, but what I am talking about is a condition that lingers beneath the surface of my skin – to the point where I cannot even reach the actual problem no matter how much I try to pick at it.

When we look at pictures of models, I imagine that each of us secretly has a part of the body that we are drawn to because it is something we feel we are lacking. For some, it may be a slim waist or a plump butt, but for me, it’s clear skin. No, it’s not because of beauty standards and I don’t feel I’m “pretty enough,” whatever that means. I have at times wrestled with the idea that perhaps I’m not as beautiful as I could be, but that does not bother me as much as the feeling of not being healthy. I feel self conscious having pictures taken because my face literally feels dirty. I take a shower and the rest of my body feels smooth and clean except for my face. I can feel the inflammation and the bacteria beneath the surface, and I can’t feel clean enough no matter what face wash or moisturizer I use.

Sometimes my face hurts, badly. I like to think I have a moderate-to-high tolerance for pain, but skin on the face is such a sensitive area that it is almost an entirely different ballpark.  Good luck trying to scratch that itch on your chin without breaking into tears – unless you break out with more bloody bumps first. Sometimes young children ask me what’s wrong with my face, and to simplify the situation I tell them that there are boo-boos on my face. One time a little girl asked me if I needed a band-aid. I thought it was very sweet, although I declined.

I guess all that to say that our bodies age, they get sick, one day they die. While they are put together to work a certain way, sometimes they don’t, and that can be frustrating at times. I am generally comfortable with my appearance; for me it is not so much an issue of being beautiful as it is one of being healthy, and sometimes I just don’t feel healthy no matter how much I do to take care of my body.

Where You Find Refuge

I love the part in stories when the characters meet in cafes. There is something intimate about a cafe that elicits honesty among those who go there. It is a warm and safe place where people take off their masks, and often where they go to work out their problems. On the other hand, we often see people putting on masks when they go to an expensive restaurant. Do you ever notice how characters meet their friends in a cafe, but they meet their enemies in the white tablecloth-, crystal glass-type atmosphere? In the movie Thor, for example, the people Thor runs into when he visits earth take him to a homely diner. This builds a sense of comfortability among those in the group. In Paranoia, on the other hand, the rivaling companies meet in fine-dining settings, creating tension and competition between each other. [Sidebar: Yes, I realize I just named movies that feature the Hemsworth brothers. What can I say, they’re rather nice-looking and they have accents] I can’t recall how many times I’ve wanted to write a story that includes a scene in a cafe or coffee shop. The worn chairs, the smooth jazz playing in the background, the hot mug warming my hands. A pause in everyday life as I contemplate the adventures awaiting me. But as I’ve heard from many artists, people don’t want to hear a story in which there is no conflict. What does work in a story is when the character has a refuge, a place to escape in the midst of trouble. In novels it may be a hidden cave or an attic. In many movies, it is a coffee shop or cafe. Often I am so distracted by everyday stresses that I don’t want to focus on creating a fictional conflict. But perhaps the escape isn’t so much the location I write about as it is in the actual writing. Hence why it’s taken me three hundred words to say I love coffee shops.

Sex, Fantasy, and Fifty Shades

Lately I’ve seen a lot of hype about the film rendition of Fifty Shades of Grey across the internet. Mostly it’s been a lot of protesting about how the story promotes sexual abuse and dominance. Personally I’m not really interested in the books or the movie, so my critique of the story would be limited at best. But I’m not here to write a critique – there are plenty already out there. I’m here to tell you some of my thoughts based on what I’ve observed about this latest uproar.

My concern lies in the conversations I read about how it’s a shame that young people today are indulging in stories like these and will not have a firm understanding of what true love or a satisfying sex life looks like. Before I continue, let me say that in no way do I condone sexual abuse, and I certainly hope that this post doesn’t come across that way. What I am saying is that we shouldn’t wait for stories like Fifty Shades to go viral before we start talking about how sex should be.

Upon looking up the author, I found a quote of hers that said that this story was essentially her sexual fantasies, which, in my opinion, puts a different perspective on how I view the story. While a woman may not publicly admit it, I think there exists in many women’s minds fantasies that are not intended to be played out in real life, be they sex with a stranger, being forcefully tied down, etc. Thoughts and emotions that allow the person to feel as though they’re not completely in control (while in reality they still are) help to increase the tension of the moment, making it more exciting and therefore easier to climax. When you put those fantasies on a screen, however, they  turn into something seen as dominating and abusive, because it’s not meant to make sense in real life (hence why it’s a fantasy).

For those of you who don’t want your children to see this movie because you want to explain to them how beautiful true love and healthy sex is, that’s great. The problem is, not everyone wants to have that conversation, especially, I find, those of the more conservative mindsets. If you can’t even say the word sex without giggling or blushing, you’re probably not the first person I’m going to go to for advice in the matter. That’s why the majority of my sex ed came from Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, and Game of Thrones. Google didn’t blush. It didn’t pause in an awkward silence thinking, “oh crap, I have to have this conversation with her.” It simply gave me the answers I was looking for and then some. And yes, some people did offer to talk about any questions I had. But I was so ignorant of my own body that I didn’t even know what questions to ask.

Maybe you giggle or smile because you have a great sex life. Maybe you’re remembering the night you had with your partner last week. But I can’t tell what you’re thinking. All I read is a change in your demeanor, which then makes me uncomfortable and feel that maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.

For those of you who wonder why anyone would want to sit through a movie like that in a dark theatre surrounded by people, maybe it’s because it feels like a safe place. Maybe there are a lot of confused or frustrated young people trying to understand their bodies and biological functions, but can’t find the answers they need because their elders are too embarrassed to talk about it. Or if they aren’t, the conversation is weighted with fear that somebody is going to fuck somebody into abomination. And so in a way it almost makes sense to me to want to escape to the theatre where I don’t have to be embarrassed for wondering about my body and maybe less-than-traditional ways of having sex.

Blizzards, Bundles, and Blossoms

I don’t hate Valentine’s Day. So many people I’ve talked to do. Growing up, I remember learning about St. Valentine, and I would look through catalogues of fun clothes and decorations. Not to mention my favorite color used to be pink.

As I’ve grown older, however, I’ve realized that for many people this holiday tends to induce a lot of loneliness and bitterness as it accentuates couples and isolates single people. I don’t think the issue is the holiday, necessarily, but rather the perspective of it. Sometimes the media overwhelms us with the idea that we are not complete with out a significant other, and Valentine’s Day only exaggerates that mindset.

I have tried to shift my focus from loneliness to loving, without being in a relationship. When I went with a friend to Krispy Kreme for heart-shaped donuts, she gave me a big fluffy teddy bear. Another friend gave me chocolates, and another friend sent me a bouquet of flowers. I was able to do some fun things on Valentine’s Day, and then I got to spend the evening doing something I love: writing. And with the weather being as cold and dreary as it has been, there’s no place I’d rather be than inside and warm.

Letter to My Future Lover

Dear Lover, whoever you are and wherever you may be,

Normally I would think it foolish to write to someone of the future who is, as of now, invisible to me. But upon reflecting on certain parts of myself, I would like to share some thoughts with you about the girl who will one day stand before you.

I am writing from a place of deep sorrow. A selfish sorrow, I admit, that comes from having experienced pain. I do not know who I will be when you and I meet, but I would contend that pain is a universal experience that haunts many people. It haunts me, and could possibly continue to do so even after we meet. It may not be obvious at first, especially if it only manifests itself as a shadow in my eyes. Eventually it will become more familiar to you as we get to know each other better. Do not be afraid of it. Pain is merely a proof that we are human, and sorrow the substance of growth. I hope to have the luxury of maturing more before you meet me, but chances are I will have a lot of growing to do regardless of when we cross paths.

Please be patient with me as I work to consistently become a healthier and stronger version of myself. I am often insecure in my efforts, and progress is slow. I must ask your forgiveness in advance for the times I will be crying on the bed or speaking in tirades that make sense only to me. Sometimes making light of it may cause me to feel better, while at other times a comforting hand on my shoulder would be more appropriate. Sometimes I will just need a hug.

Never should I dare ask you to heal a broken heart, for that is too much to ask of any single human. I have experienced heartbreak, and the only person who can mend that is myself. I would only ask for your gentleness in my sensitive moments. One thing that is highly important to me is that I feel safe. Once I feel safe, I can then navigate the parts of myself that require vulnerability, that feel less safe. By working through those areas, I can begin to grow stronger. Your reassuring presence will help give me the courage I need to pursue that.

Ultimately, I do not want to ask for much, for I hope to be able to give more than I take. I only ask for your patience and gentleness as I grow, and that you would love me as I will one day love you. Here’s hoping that this is the only part of this version of me you will know, that by the time our roads cross I will have already grown above and beyond where I am now. And so until we meet for the first time, I say farewell.

Secret Land

I know about a secret land
That’s hidden far away.
So if you’ll only take my hand
I’ll bring you there today.

A place of stories, legends, mist
As old as time itself
Where those who know it can’t resist
The vast amount of wealth.

A place of solitude and peace
And where the children play
A place of comfort and release
And fears are stripped away.

But, oh, beware of bitter storm
That tries to come and steal
The beauty out of all the land
And make it all unreal.

The air is full of magic
And the water full of youth;
The scholars study endlessly
To know its deepest truth.

For much is undiscovered still
With so much mystery
But if you open up your eyes
Then you will be set free.

But I suppose you’ve guessed by now
The things that you will find.
I think you know that place quite well;
That land is called the mind.

 

July 2012